This fascinating new study shows how the CIA and the British secret service, in collaboration with the military alliance NATO and European military secret services, set up a network of clandestine anti-communist armies in Western Europe after World War II. These secret soldiers were trained on remote islands in the Mediterranean and in unorthodox warfare centres in England and in the United States by the Green Berets and SAS Special Forces. The network was armed with explosives, machine guns and high-tech communication equipment hidden in underground bunkers and secret arms caches in forests and mountain meadows. In some countries the secret army linked up with right-wing terrorist who in a secret war engaged in political manipulation, harrassement of left wing parties, massacres, coup d'états and torture. Codenamed 'Gladio' ('the sword'), the Italian secret army was exposed in 1990 by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to the Italian Senate, whereupon the press spoke of "The best kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II" (Observer, 18. November 1990) and observed that "The story seems straight from the pages of a political thriller." (The Times, November 19, 1990). Ever since, so-called 'stay-behind' armies of NATO have also been discovered in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Greece and Turkey. They were internationally coordinated by the Pentagon and NATO and had their last known meeting in the NATO-linked Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) in Brussels in October 1990.

"[This book] is a red flag to restore our historical consciousness about U.S.-Russian relations, and how denying this consciousness is leading to a repetition of past follies"--Amazon.com.

Acts of violence assume many forms: they may travel by the arc of a guided missile or in the language of an economic policy, and they may leave behind a smoldering village or a starved child. The all-pervasiveness of violence makes it seem like an unavoidable, and ultimately incomprehensible, aspect of the modern world. But, in this detailed and expansive book, Marc Pilisuk and Jen Rountree demonstrate otherwise. Widespread violence, they argue, is in fact an expression of the underlying social order, and whether it is carried out by military forces or by patterns of investment, the aim is to strengthen that order for the benefit of the powerful. The Hidden Structure of Violence marshals vast amounts of evidence to examine the costs of direct violence, including military preparedness and the social reverberations of war, alongside the costs of structural violence, expressed as poverty and chronic illness. It also documents the relatively small number of people and corporations responsible for facilitating the violent status quo, whether by setting the range of permissible discussion or benefiting directly as financiers and manufacturers. The result is a stunning indictment of our violent world and a powerful critique of the ways through which violence is reproduced on a daily basis, whether at the highest levels of the state or in the deepest recesses of the mind.

While scholarship abounds on the diplomatic and security aspects of the Cold War, very little attention has been paid to military planning at the operational level. In Blueprints for Battle, experts from Russia, the United States, and Europe address this dearth by closely examining the military planning of NATO and Warsaw Pact member nations from the end of World War II to the beginning of détente. Informed by material from recently opened archives, this collection investigates the perceptions and actions of the rival coalitions, exploring the challenges presented by nuclear technology, examining how military commanders' perceptions changed from the 1950s to the 1960s, and discussing logistical coordination among allied states. The result is a detailed study that offers much-needed new perspectives on the military aspects of the early Cold War.

Military, economic, and environmental violence in the era of globalization cause immense suffering and may ultimately threaten the existence of life as we know it, but author Pilisuk explains that the future can change if we understand and act upon the roots of violence. A professor emeritus of psychology and human and community development, Pilisuk explains how most violence is the product of a human-built social order in which some people and institutions control most of the resources, make the decisions that necessitate violence, and operate with minimal accountability. The common root of war, poverty, environmental destruction, and other forms of violence is spotlighted. Such violence, says Pilisuk, is a natural consequence of a system inordinately influenced by a relatively small, interconnected group of corporate, military, and government leaders with the power to instill fear, to increase their excessive fortunes, and to restrict information, particularly about their own clandestine dealings. This text includes scholarship hailing from across disciplines, combined with information from investigative journalism, and insights from nonprofit watchdog groups, all shedding light on centralized power and its effects. Pilisuk presents material including the range of tactics used to manipulate and destroy adversaries, the human capacity to kill as a challenge, and how media is used by powerful groups to manipulate fear and maintain their power. Here, readers find solid social science to support what whistleblowers and social critics are observing about a system that needs change.

This book examines a wide array of phenomena that arguably constitute the most noxious, extreme, terrifying, murderous, secretive, authoritarian, and/or anti-democratic aspects of national and international politics. Scholars should not ignore these "dark sides" of politics, however unpleasant they may be, since they influence the world in a multitude of harmful ways. The first volume in this two-volume collection focuses on the history of underground neo-fascist networks in the post-World War II era; neo-fascist paramilitary and terrorist groups operating in Europe and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s; and the manipulation of those and other terrorist organizations by the security forces of various states, both authoritarian and democratic. A range of global case studies are included, all of which focus on the lesser known activities of certain secular extremist milieus. This collection should prove to be essential reading for students and researchers interested in understanding seemingly arcane but nonetheless important dimensions of recent historical and contemporary politics.

The book acidly tells us a story of the rise and decline of one of the greatest empires ever—and surely the most prominent empire, as the existing one in our life time. The most prominent and as the statistical abstracts and documents of the US Congress reveal the most addicted of all empires to an old and continuous military interventionism in every corner of the world. At the beginning of his book the author lists and examines closely the new and century-old principles and doctrines incorporated into American foreign policy as a combination between diplomacy and war, and almost always the latter being the winner—i.e. American exceptionality, Monroe Doctrine, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Speak Soft and Carry a Big Stick” diplomacy, Show-the-Flag strategic idiom, Gunboat Diplomacy, Truman and Reagan doctrines, the Domino Theory, the neoconservative Project for a New American Century, Bush Jr. Doctrine of preventive wars etc. Then, quoting highly qualified American sources, the author shocks the reader as he concludes that “the US is no longer a truly democratic state, but one led by oligarchy, an ‘Elite’ that no longer represent the will of the population.” He also emphasizes with logical arguments the existence of the US “Military-industrial complex,” the Deep State, the Financial Cartel etc. He unveils an America in the twilight zone of secretive planning and leadership, strictly controlled global institutions, wars and neocolonialism in the Middle East, Latin America and East Europe, and of 75 years of Soviet Union/Russia incisive and limitless budgeted strategies of confrontation. Basically, in his book Mr. Atudorei exposes a perpetual chain of historical misdeeds having America as its originator: America addicted to militarism; an American militarism addicted to aggression, war and imperial supremacy; 240 years long and continuous American wars addicted to millions of victims; finally millions of victims forgotten by a political propaganda machine addicted to falsehood, deception and lies, and calling invasions, coup d’états and aerial bombings as “humanitarian interventions” bringing peace, freedom and democracy… Radu Toma When referring to the world hegemony of the US, the author points out that in fact the first victim of such a policy is the American people itself who became captive of more or less hidden centers of power (called in various ways: global oligarchy, the military-industrial complex, the financial-banking elite, etc.), centers that usurped the real power in the state and transformed the democratic political system into a simulacrum for the use of masses subject to sophisticated social engineering. Calistrat M. Atudorei shows that the US as an empire with pretention of absolute global supremacy tends to impose its dominance both through non-military wars—cultural, ideological, media, economic—as well as through direct military invasions aiming to punish regimes and nations that do not want to be subjected to them. Working with consistent arguments, the author emphasizes that the plans of subjugation of the whole world are neither recent nor do they relate to the preferences of people who become US presidents. On closer examination, the so-called hosts of the White House appear to us like ordinary puppets in the hands of forces behind the curtain. See in this regard, for example, the current US President Donald Trump’ case, who abandoned his electoral rhetoric, being shaped by the “Deep State” on the line of serving the interests of this all-powerful nebula to the detriment of the American people and peace in the world. Iurie Roşca

Turkish Intelligence and the Cold War examines the hitherto unexplored history of secret intelligence cooperation between three asymmetric partners – specifically the UK, US and Turkey – from the end of the Second World War until the Turkey's first military coup d'état on 27 May 1960. The book shows that our understanding of the Cold War as a binary rivalry between the two blocs is too simple an approach and obscures important characteristics of intelligence cooperation among allies. Egemen Bezci shows that a pragmatic approach offers states new opportunities to protect national interests, by conducting ''intelligence diplomacy' to influence crucial areas such as nuclear weapons and to exploit cooperation in support of their own strategic imperatives. This study not only reveals previously-unexplored origins of secret intelligence cooperation between Turkey and West, but also contributes to wider academic debates on the nature of the Cold War by highlighting the potential agency of weaker states in the Western Alliance.

This book presents an in-depth case study of thirteen individuals who moved away from terrorist activity in Turkey. Setting their life stories in the context of political violence in support of Kurdish independence and a leftist revolution, and the response of the Turkish state, the book examines how the individuals were motivated to become involved in terrorism, how they participated, why they became disillusioned, and above all how they coped with the difficult process of disengagement. The book then draws out general lessons on how individuals can be encouraged to move away from terrorism, and especially on how states can construct repentance mechanisms, and protection mechanisms, to assist with this. The book is a particularly rich valuable source on why people move away from terrorism as most books in the field concentrate on why people become terrorists, and on "terrorist profiling".

Neutrality has, supposedly, long been a pillar of the Irish national identity – a policy that the country has proudly presented on the world stage. But, examining the concept reveals it to be a vague and elastic notion – one that, throughout history, various governments have been happy to stretch or, in some cases, abandon entirely. Today, warfare has expanded to include cyberattacks, environmental concerns, election interference and disinformation. If our traditional idea of warfare is changing, should our idea of neutrality change too? In this timely and thought-provoking examination of a core tenet of Irish society, Conor Gallagher explores the practical and ethical implications of choosing a side, asking: in the face of aggression, is it right to sit back and do nothing?